TEHRAN – Iran’s government is drafting a plan to upgrade its economic security strategy, with a focus on currency management and imports, a senior research official said.

Abed Mashayekh, head of the economic security working group at the Center for Development and Foresight Studies, said economic security had been a central concern of President Masoud Pezeshkian’s economic team since the new administration took office.

He said the plan was commissioned at the start of the 14th administration and would be operationalized after completion for use by the government.

Mashayekh said the group had spent about a year reviewing key components of economic security, highlighting imports and exchange rate management as among the most decisive factors shaping Iran’s economic conditions over decades.

On exchange rate policy, he said the government had set up two trading halls to manage the official rate, with preferential foreign exchange to be gradually limited to specific essential goods and medicines, while a second hall would allocate currency to goods that are not competitive domestically.

He said criticism from industrialists and business operators led the government to shift preferential currency from the beginning of the production and distribution chain to the final consumer, a move that he said significantly harmed import cartels.

EF/MA